A World Worth Saving
by RikiTiki
Summary: Necromancers are not supposed to be Heroes, they exist between life and death, they walk the line between good and evil. Alastair is a Necromancer and a Hero. Elly is the Rogue assigned to protect him in his quest.   Read and review Please!
1. Seer's Vision

**Disclaimer: I do not own Diablo II on which this story is based, but I sure as hell love to play it!**

Seer's Vision

Akara's eyes fluttered several times before opening, they were a deep azure, flecked with silver and were reminiscent of the stars clustered in the dome of heaven above. The world around her was still hazy with the fog of vision. When she was sufficiently able to distinguish between the physical world the surrounded her and the spiritual world where she Saw Akara sat up stiffly; age and worry were in her bones, still when she was able to reach her feet she moved with impressive speed for such a small bent creature. She pushed the flap of her tent aside; the bright light of the noon day sun was a shock to her system after the cold darkness of her visions. A young woman dressed in faded leather armor with a long spear in one hand who was standing guard over her tent snapped to attention and saluted as the old woman emerged.

"Seer."

"Ithera child, send for Kashya. I have Seen."

"Yes Seer."

Akara smiled as the woman took off across camp, then ducked back into the comforting shade of her tent to put the kettle on. Her vision today would bring new hope to the camp, and possibly to the whole world, but Kashya would need some time away from the ever watchful eyes of her subordinates to mourn the loss of a once dear friend before she could celebrate the Hero's victory.


	2. Flesh, Bone and Stone

Flesh, Bone and Stone

Elly remembered the decimation of Tristram, she remembered the flight to their little encampment, and she remembered the brief period of peace while the world tried to rebuild. Now the dark was rising once again and with it a Hero would rise as a beacon of light and hope to the world. To her utter astonishment it appeared that the Hero of this age had arrived, and that he was a Necromancer. Her brows knit as she scrutinized the Hero. He was a striking sight; tall and gaunt, the flesh of his face was stretched tightly over prominent cheekbones, long beaky nose, sharp angular jaw line, and was the pale of bleached bone, except where the skin darkened beneath the deep set hollows of his glittering onyx eyes to the rich purple of congealed blood. His thin colorless lips were pressed together, and his heavy brows were furrowed as he listened to the captain speak. A long strand of shock white hair came loose from its bindings and fell into his face; he brushed it behind his ear with an awkward jerky motion. Elly noticed that from the second knuckle down the long thin fingers of his hand was the same purpled colour as the hollows of his eyes. Except for that one motion, he could have been a statue, or a corpse.

The town had been in an uproar since the Dark Wanderer had passed through and the attacks had begun. Nothing had hurt more than the fall of Blood Raven. Kashya, her captain, had not been the same since the confirmation of her lieutenant's corruption. Blood Raven had been a Necromancer born, but had turned away from her destiny, it was especially hard to know that she had fallen to calling the dead from the Burial Grounds, and harder still for Kashya to accept the help of a Necromancer in bringing about her necessary destruction. After Akara had announced that the Hero had defeated Blood Raven everyone about the camp had celebrated. Everyone accept the captain who had remained aloof from the festivities. It was shortly thereafter that Elly had been summoned and informed that she would be required to accompany the Hero after he returned to the town to serve as a guide and provide him protection.

The Hero had introduced himself as Alastair, not surprisingly he gave no surname, and likely he had none. Nature marks Necromancers from birth by their appearance as different from those around them. Their nature and affinities have the tendency to make others uneasy in their presence, and their association with death has always pushed them to the fringe of society. Very often parents of Necromancers would leave their newly birthed infants on the steps of their local church, with the understanding that enduring the stigma of abandoning their own child was still easier to bear than the prospect of raising such a being to maturity.

Kashya turned away and Elly stepped forward.

"We start tomorrow, be prepared to depart early." His voice was deep and resonant, but unconcerned and implacable. He did not wait for a reply from her but turned on his heel and headed toward the edge of town. Elly returned to her tent, eager with anticipation and wracked with fear for the adventure to come, and fear of the Necromancer.


	3. Raising the Dead

Raising the Dead

That night in her tent, Elly had prepared herself mentally for the adventures to come, but this was so much worse than she could have imagined. Akara asked the Hero to rescue Deckard Cain, the last of the Horadrim. In order to do this they had to find the Tree of Inferinuss which held the code to activate the Cairn stones and provide them with a portal to the ruined city of Tristram. Elly loathed the idea of going back to the scene of their great defeat, but she recognized the value of Deckard Cain, so they had set out across the Blood Moor. All of the skeletal minions that the Hero had commanded had been destroyed in his battle with Blood Raven, so their first task was to replenish their ranks.

Though they stayed on the path it was not long until they encountered a small band of Fallen backed by a Fallen Shaman. They fell quickly to Elly's arrows. She stood back and watched as the rail thin figure of the Necromancer stepped forward. A strange light seemed to shine darkly from the Necromancer's gloved hands; the sight was nauseating to Elly. Stands of this light shot from his gloved fingers and flew into the fallen bodies of the Fallen. He closed his hands into fists and pulled. His face was contorted in effort, then came the sound, there was a ripping, a tearing from the bodies of their enemies. The red flesh split as bone began to emerge. A full skeleton rose still trailing bits of ragged flesh, torn muscle, and gobbets of unidentifiable organ remnants. The death grin of bare skulls and empty eye sockets stared back them, Elly unable to fight the rising tide turned and vomited. As the skeletal forms began shakily to assume this grotesque second life the tension that had held the Necromancer's form rigid through this process relaxed slightly. He looked back at her, his face still implacable but less cold. Elly struggled to her feet; weakness was not an appropriate sight for a Hero. So they continued all through that day, Elly keeping watch for anything moving off the beaten path. She felled eight more fallen, and the skeletal soldiers brought down another two dozen or so. To Elly's great relief none of them were destroyed so she was not forced to watch another of the Necromancer's resurrections. They made camp out on the moor the first night though Elly found it impossible to sleep, the clacking of bone on bone that came from their skeletal guard as they made their way around the perimeter set by their master who sat leaning against a rock on the other side of the fire from Elly, the reflection of the flames dancing in his midnight black eyes. After an hour of tossing and turning Elly sat up and moved closer to the fire.

"Hero?" She asked.

He acknowledged her question by shifting his gaze from the fire.

"Are you comforted by these companions of yours?" She asked indicating a passing skeleton.

For the first time the Necromancer looked perplexed, "the dead are not companions. A companion is someone other than yourself, these that walk around us are merely an extension of my will."

There was no emotion in his voice, and Elly wondered to how this Necromancer perceived her, after thinking on it for a moment she voiced her query.

"I appreciate that you risk your life in order to provide me protection and I will be grateful for your sacrifice as long as you live."

"And if I fall?"

"I will raise your skeleton and in death you will continue to aid me in my quest until you are destroyed or I am killed."

His voice remained impassive, but the image of her body being pulled apart by those awful strands of light followed her into her dreams as she fell into a fitful sleep.


	4. Scavenging

Scavenging

They passed out of the Blood Moor in a matter of days, Elly never referred to the conversation they had held by the campfire, but it didn't leave her mind. As they walked they rarely spoke, him from long habit and her from a lingering reticence to have any questions she might ask answered. Her silence broke as she hailed Flavie, the greatest archer to come from the Rogues in three generations, who now stood solitary guard against the flood of evil that threatened to overwhelm the encampment. To Flavie's credit her presence on the threshold of the Cold Plains was the only reason that Blood Raven had never dared an assault on the Rogue Encampment.

"Greetings Sister," Elly called with the relief of a drowning man breaking the surface and gulping air. Elly was astonished to see how worn her sister looked. This constant vigilance had clearly taken its toll.

"Greetings, Sister, welcome back Hero."

To her astonishment Elly watched as the Necromancer inclined his head in respectful acknowledgement of Flavie's greeting.

"Evil lies beyond, may your path be watched over."

It was not much, but Elly was grateful for any friendly conversation, even if the subject was the dangers that lay ahead. They had just gone far enough that Flavie had passed from sight when they were set upon by a gang of corrupted rouges. The skeletons did as they were bid and attacked with indiscriminate fury. Elly knocked an arrow on her bow and drew the string, but hesitated. She recognized one of their attackers. A young woman, nearly her age, Aegtha, Elly remembered taking shooting lessons with Aegatha. She paid for her hesitation as Aegatha closed the distance and stabbed wildly with her spear. Elly swayed, just enough to stop the point from piercing her right eye, it skipped off her brow ridge tearing the flesh to the bone. Elly loosed the arrow by reflex and it buried itself deep in the woman's chest. She watched as the woman arched back her body falling to the ground. A sudden clatter from behind her brought Elly back to the moment, she turned, another arrow on the string, but one of the skeletons had just felled the last of the corrupted ones who had apparently tried to stab her in the back as Elly stood stupefied.

Elly felt the barest moment of relief, even gratitude to the Necromancer and his thralls, this feeling evaporated a moment later as she watched the Necromancer sink to the ground and begin pulling the armor off one of the corpses.

"Of all the depravities to which we can sink are you going to become a robber of the dead as well as-" Elly trailed off trying to think of words evil enough to describe what he had done to the bodies of the Fallen Ones.

The Necromancer's face finally showed an emotion, and Elly sank back in fear at the horror of it, "I have had enough!" He shouted.

"Enough of your too polite loathing of me, of what I am and how I survive," he held up the armor that he had just pulled from the Corrupted Rogue, "I am a Hero, I did not ask to be one I am one. I am saving this damn world, which has never been kind to me and has given me little enough reason to wish it prolonged. This armor is slightly better than the armor I currently wear. It will protect me from a slightly harder blow, maybe just enough so that I am able to complete my task. I will not have you degrading me for saving your world, and if you cannot find your way to come to terms with me or my task , then off you go, back to the encampment, I have had enough saving the people who damn me!"

The gaunt figure moved jerkily away, his rage still unspent. Elly watched stunned. After a few moments thought she moved over to where the Necromancer had continued his scavenging. She went to her knees and began combing the corpse he was searching for anything of value.

He looked at her, his black eyes still burning,

"I apologize." She said with as much sincerity and contrition as she could put into her voice.

She meant it, he looked up at her again, the fire dying from his eyes, as he spoke, his voice almost gentle, "No one have ever apologized to me before, thank you."


End file.
